During my time in Austin - Texas, I was riding in the middle of a GS gang, it made me angry, you know... :silent: :crazy:

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Then after flying home in Vietnam, I still riding with my lovely VFR and keep thinking of getting for me a GS to enjoy all all kind of terrains in Vietnam.

That's reason why I made my decision to get a R1200GS as a trial.
Looking for the bike. Found it. Wired money. Then ... wait...

And the first day when the bike home:

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Cleaned the bike, repaint some plastic parts. Made some new stickers. And how you can see it now - ready to roll:

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A weekend, Hochiminh City Ducati Club invited our team (ACE MTSG) to join their club birthday in Mui Ne, around 200km away from Hochiminh City.
To me, it would not be fun enough if riding straight from home to Mui Ne, so that why I created a round trip, to very far away from Mui Ne then back.

We rode on a quite good twisty road. I think I have posted about it somewhere here on TWT.
Well, never mind, it's good road though. I can confident saying so as the GS handling is pretty much different from all the bikes I have ridden. It helped me handle the rough surface, no concern of pot holes, which are terrible even to my VFR.

Done the first pass, estimated around almost 400km away from home, we stopped for lunch and waiting for another bike group came down from Nha Trang, from 600km away from HCMC.

Then we joined together for the next pass. That's long one, 100km with around 70km all twisty.{}
Rest stop after that pass, Ducati Hypermotard biker looked so happy as he had no chicken strips:

VietHorse, great to see the Vietnam forum pumping again; such a satisfying country - visually, historically & culturally - in which to tour.

Like David I was taken by the big bikes - in my time riding throughout the whole of the country I never saw such bikes, indeed only ever saw a couple of large bikes on the one occasion parked outside a hotel in Da Nang.

As you know I love to ride wherever the bike takes me, to not be constrained by such details as road surfaces. My experience was that in the south (Mekong Delta), one needed a smaller bike especially for the constant crossing of the waterways on craft where the bike storage was internal; even with a YBR the operators of such craft would initially shudder. In the north, there were many unsealed roads & the extremely boggyconditions caused by constant rains made a lighter bike essential.

There were signs of many crossings being built & many roads being sealed (though often poorly) & I was in awe at the speed of development throughout the country, but I wonder if the development has been such as to give these big bikes unlimited access to the splendours of Vietnam.

Rod Page;290542 wrote: VietHorse, great to see the Vietnam forum pumping again; such a satisfying country - visually, historically & culturally - in which to tour.

Like David I was taken by the big bikes - in my time riding throughout the whole of the country I never saw such bikes, indeed only ever saw a couple of large bikes on the one occasion parked outside a hotel in Da Nang.

As you know I love to ride wherever the bike takes me, to not be constrained by such details as road surfaces. My experience was that in the south (Mekong Delta), one needed a smaller bike especially for the constant crossing of the waterways on craft where the bike storage was internal; even with a YBR the operators of such craft would initially shudder. In the north, there were many unsealed roads & the rains constant making a lighter bike was essential for the constantly bogged conditions.

There were signs of many crossings being built & many roads being sealed (though often poorly) & I was in awe at the speed of development throughout the country, but I wonder if the development has been such as to give these big bikes unlimited access to the splendours of Vietnam.

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Howdy Rod.
It's also great that I can back on the road a gain. For sure If my bike rolling, there will be RR posting around here.